snow angel

Even us big kids like snow. While we don't get to go out and play in it as much as we may like, it is still fun. (For awhile until you have to shovel it, scrap it off your car and get stuck in it.)

This big blizzard made me remember all the fun I used to have in the wintertime outside as a kid. [A luxury that pm was never able to enjoy being from the pseudo-tropics.] I remember coming home from school when I was in elementary school only to drop off my book bag and then build forts and have snowball fights with my brothers until dinner.

On the weekends we'd be outside all day. We'd come inside for hot cocoa breaks and to dry out our boots. We lived close enough to a sledding hill, so sometimes we'd walk to it. Other times we'd pretend like the small hill in the front yard was enough for us. Regardless, there was always something to do in the snow. Not to mention there were always friends and neighborhood kids around to join in on the fun.

Oh those were the good old days.

In a tribute to those days, I decided (as noted above) to make some snow angels. It was way harder than I remember. To my defense, I don't ever remember making a snow angel in 22 inches of snow. It was fun nonetheless. If only I would have had more time to work on that fort (or a backyard to make it in.)

Stay warm & get out and enjoy it. We spend so much time complaining about the cold and the winter. I have decided I am going to (try to) be positive about it and relish in its beauty.

seafood gnocci***

It's cold, windy and snowy out. Dinner needs to be warm, hearty and healthy. Cue in seafood gnocci.

It is my goal within the next couple of weeks to empty out our freezer, cupboards and fridge. I want to start over fresh with all new foods. I feel like we stock pile things and then never end of using them. I mentioned that one of my resolutions this year is to eat more healthy foods. This will have to start in the kitchen, and has to start with a clean slate.

One a first glance in our freezer this evening I was already overwhelmed. Mostly overwhelmed by the amount of frozen fruit that is in there from past trips to the Maxwell Street Market. I am well aware that emptying our the freezer will involve a ton of baking in the next few weeks. I am up for it.

Although, I'll save the baking for another day, another post. I wanted a filling dinner tonight to beat out the winter blues (and what they are saying will be the worst snow storm of the century...). I'm calling this a Trader Joe's dinner because almost all the major ingredients (***) came from there.

I did not write down the recipe (I never do when I cook). Here is my best guess at ingredients:

-whole wheat gnocci***

- frozen seafood mixture (shrimp, calamari, etc.)***

- onion***

- garlic***

- fresh tomato & tomato paste

- butter

- splash on Vino Verde*** (one for the sauce, one for me)

- fresh parmesan cheese***

- herbs & seasonings

Do have any foods that you prefer to eat when the weather is cold & blistery?

out of sugar

So I had this master plan on Friday night to bake. (I also had other "to-dos" on my list: clean, grocery shop, chill, watch a chick flick, have a fruity drink...etc.)

There was one major bump in my plan -- we were out of sugar. Literally - totally out of sugar. I had already gone out to do the grocery shopping and I was not about to go out again for sugar. There was going to have to be another baking option, sans sugar. Enter quiche. Rather than make the cupcakes and cookies I had originally planned, I decided to make a spinach, mushroom & swiss cheese egg pie. A good catch on my part.

Despite the success, that will be the last time I run out of sugar.

Whatever happened to the days when you could knock on your neighbor's door and ask for a cup of sugar or for an extra egg? As a kid, I used to run over the neighbor's house a lot to pick up random ingredients that we were lacking. Likewise, they did the same thing. Maybe someday when pm and I live in suburbia and know all of our neighbors, I will do that again.

Instead, we've always live in apartments. I have always found apartment living to be so isolating and sheltered. Sometimes it is nice - you don't have to know all of their business (even if you can hear it through the walls). You can maintain your distance and go on with your daily life. After all, apartment living (in most cases) is temporary housing.

I guess for me, I always wanted to get to know the neighbors. Have game nights, dinner parties, a watchful eye when you are out of town ...etc. *sigh* Maybe someday even if we don't live in a house I'll be able to knock on a neighbor's door for missing ingredients. Maybe someday...

Then I can also share my baked goods. There is no way pm and I are going to be able to eat a whole quiche on our own.

sicky.

Bah. Friday night and we're staying in. Staying in because pm is sick, very sick.

My goal for the evening is not to get too close. Instead I am going to do some girlie things. My plan is to go to the grocery store (stat!), bake (yes, against the diet rules), clean (not a girlie thing, but something I've got to do), watch a chick flick (provided pm goes to bed early!) and have a fruity drink (wish it could be another mai tai like we had last weekend in Milwaukee...).

In some senses it is kind of nice to have an excuse to relax. After a week of running around and keeping busy, it is nice to finally have to sit tight and chill. Something that I just don't feel like I do enough of it. I feel like I come home from work and then until I go to bed cannot turn my brain off. In fact, I can't even turn my brain off when I am asleep. I stopped reading dream analysis books; they can't keep up with me and my crazy dreams.

Anyway... without further ado, I'm getting things done. Hope ya'll have a nice Friday evening as well. And, a nice weekend.

Fashion or Famine

pm and I get more magazines in the mail now than we have time in the week to read them. He had a bunch of airline miles (with an airline we never fly with) that we were not going to use, so rather than have them go to waste we subscribed like crazy people to multiple magazines.

Most of the magazines we now receive are highly intellectual. And, interesting. I don't like the days I have to drive to work, because it doesn't give me a guaranteed hour to read up on new trends, current events, investment tips, business-savvy trade secrets, etc.

I allowed myself to splurge on one "fluff" magazine: Vogue. It's not to say that this is a "fluff" magazine, but when comparing the ad-to- content ratio to any of our other subscriptions, it is well... different. I wanted to get Vogue not for the fashion (or the ads), but for the photography. I find fashion photography fascinating. The light, angles, poses....etc.

Basically, I find everything fascinating but the models.

This particular scanned ad was one I just kept turning to. I kept turning to it not because I liked the image or the models, but because I think as a photo it truly captures what I see in the fashion industry -- very petite models who look like they need a meal more than they need the photo shoot. (pm says I am radical. bah)

Anyway. This got me thinking about the recent death of French model-Isabelle Caro- and her fatal battle to be thin... too thin. All in all, I know I could never afford many of the items being sold in "fashion" ads, but based on models I would never want to. (As I mentioned before, the photography is a different thing. That I enjoy.)

Maybe it's just me, but as I woman I do not find curve-less and frail women attractive or good "sales" agents. I know that the majority of men when asked to describe a beautiful woman would under very rare circumstances choose a lass with no ass (or hips or curves).

I digress. Rather than get off on a tangent, I'm taking a poll. When you look at this ad (and not just this ad, but the majority of fashion ads) do you see high fashion or famine?

DIY Dinner: Sausage

We recently said one of our goals this year was to be more aware of what we are eating and where it is coming from. Well, today that goal has been achieved. (This does not mean that we will stop now that we are ahead.)

Tonight we made homemade sausages for the first time. pm recently bought the meat grinder attachment for our kitchen aid. I think that we have used it more for meat in the past couple of months than I ever used it for sweets. This too will change my friends...

We made a basic sausage -- pork, onion, garlic and various spices (italian seasonings, paprika, etc.) They turned out really well. Plus, I think when compared to what you'd spend in the grocery store for good sausages, we saved ourselves some money.

There was no mystery meat in these bad boys. In fact, making these made me realize just how much we probably are not aware are in "store bought" sausages. I'd rather not think about it. And, the plan is not to think about it, because we plan to make a lot more of our own homemade meats from locally grown and farmed meat. We'll be supporting our local butcher (Paulina Meat Market) and eating more healthy. A win-win all around.

Beer Review: Goose Island - 2010 Bourbon County Stout

Right before Christmas, while getting some supplies to fight the cold at West Lakeview Liquors, we also decided to get this book. The whole idea of keeping track of the beers we taste is quite appealing and I think it forces us to take some time and look for the different flavors and qualities in a beer. I also liked the way the pages in the book are designed, especially the flavor wheel and the star rating system; everything is very visual.

Anyways here is our first review: Goose Island - 2010 Bourbon County Stout.

First of all, this beer was quite a disappointment for the price. In my book, if you have to drop over $20 for a 4-pack it sucks to get a beer you dislike so much. I actually just discovered today that there is one still sitting in the back of our fridge.

Anyways ... regarding the beer, to make a long story short, it is just too sweet and the alcohol content a little too evident. Rather than being a beer aged in bourbon barrels, it tasted more like a caramelized bourbon spiked with stout.

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Disclaimer: These are just our personal opinions. We like beer. We like bourbon. We like stouts. We wanted to like the combination of all of these in this beer. Better luck next time.